GERMANTOWN, Wis. — In Germantown, the Maritato Home Haunt is unveiling new animatronics this Halloween season — and the man behind the monsters is an electrical engineer who turned a family tradition into a nationwide business.
Mitch Maritato does more than put up a few decorations for his annual family Halloween haunt. He loved the design process and combined it with his engineering background to eventually invent and sell animatronics to major franchise stores like Spirit Halloween, which sells his creations across the country.
Decades in, his passion hasn't faded.
"I thought 20 years ago I thought it was going to be a fad for about 10 years and it's going to go away," Maritato said. "But it has not!"
His daughter, Meagan Gibson, reached out to TMJ4 News to highlight her dad's decades-long career and engineering work — creating monsters that scare and delight Germantown trick-or-treaters and beyond.
"He just works so hard," Gibson said. "And I think deserves some recognition for all of this."
She said there's more to the craft than most people realize.
"There's so much that goes into it," she said. "It's an amazing business and it's really exciting and interesting to learn about. I think a lot of people are interested in hearing what the behind-the-scenes things are that you don't always think about!"
Maritato said it's the best holiday of the year, and he can't wait for people to see the new designs and jump scares.
"So I actually made him pneumatic," he said when describing a new zombie. "So it runs on an air compressor. Then he'll move forward. It's pretty dramatic!"
The Maritato Home Haunt starts at 5:30 on Saturday and it's free at N108W15004 Bel Aire Lane Germantown, WI 53022.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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